wedding dinner party

Brides and grooms put a very high priority on their wedding menus, wanting their guests to enjoy delicious foods in a great variety, but they also want their wedding menus to be personalized, themed, and, especially, fun.

The top trends in wedding menus at the top wedding venues in New Jersey include:

Interactive stations. Delectable gourmet foods become even more exciting to wedding guests when a chef or server stands behind the station, preparing foods to order or serving guests’ choices of plated hot or cold hors d’oeuvres. Guests who consider themselves to be foodies, or who are fans of shows like Top Chef, find it very enticing to watch the chef in action, putting on a show, and making their food choices an experience.

The question, “Which is better for a wedding reception, a sit-down wedding dinner or a buffet” can only be answered by you. The two styles are different, but each offers elements of indulging your wedding guests with the finest wedding menu items. Your personal decision on which style of wedding dinner serving style depends only on how you’d like your guests to delve into their delicious wedding fare.

A sit-down wedding dinner, of course, consists of several plated courses served to your seated wedding guests. You select from a first course, perhaps a soup, salad, entrée, perhaps an intermezzo, and each course is brought to your guests’ tables, with friendly, experienced wedding servers bringing guests the entrees they desire. Read more…

Put your personalized stamp on your wedding, in so many ways, with your own wedding logo. It’s a top wedding trend to create your own logo or monogram, featuring your first initials and last initial – or just your married last initial — in an artistic insignia. Artists have taken the traditional monogram logo and given it a beautiful, decorative twist for more visual effect, such as with delicate flourishes above and below the logo, rather than the monogram being in a circle. Or, the logo might be a square, a rectangle with ornate borders, or an oval. Read more…

When guests travel in from out of town to attend a wedding, it’s become a new wedding must to plan several additional activities and events for them to enjoy during their stay. While your beautiful wedding will of course be the centerpiece of the weekend, there are many more hours to fill with fun events that give guests (and you!) more quality time together. Read more…

It’s now become far more prevalent for our New Jersey and New York City wedding couples to customize their wedding catering choices with a large selection of food items that their gluten-free and vegetarian guests can enjoy. Brides and grooms have read horror stories on wedding websites, wedding blogs and wedding message boards about weddings at which dietary-restricted guests could only pick on a small number of foods. They certainly don’t want that for their own wedding guests, nor do we. Read more…

Wedding guests look forward to the dessert hour with great anticipation. Even as they savor your gourmet wedding menu, they’re looking forward to your spectacular wedding cake, decadent dessert buffet, and sweets stations. Great desserts make a fabulous wedding unforgettable, as the last taste of your grand wedding impresses your guests tremendously.

Here are the top trends in wedding desserts to inspire you:

Individual dessert plates: Each guests receives his or her own plate arranged with a trio or collection of fresh-made desserts, such as a crème brûlée, amaretto cheesecake, flourless chocolate cake and a chocolate dipped berry. Another combination may be chocolate mousse, cheesecake with raspberry sauce, and berries. Read more…

If you think that kids’ menus at weddings consist of just chicken fingers and mini pizzas, think again. Today’s kids actually enjoy more adventurous foods in their everyday lives, so they’re perfectly happy with most of the items on your fine cuisine wedding menu. Perhaps with the exception of the raw seafood bar, and of course with parental supervision over kids’ food allergies. (Which is why we suggest placing food ID cards by each of your cocktail party menu items and carving stations.)

Here are some of the top trends in kids’ wedding menu choices:

Sushi. Since many parents prefer cooked sushi choices over raw for their kids, arrange with your wedding caterer to provide displays of cooked-item sushi choices.

Your wedding cocktail party menu is one part of your Big Day that guests look forward to the most, and they have great expectations that the food will be excellent, the presentation elaborate, and the choices plentiful. Since guests travel so far to attend weddings, it’s smart to talk with your wedding caterer about creating a cocktail party menuthat will surprise and delight your friend and family. Read more…

One of the top wedding trends is continuing the wedding celebration even after the reception is done, by planning a fun and festive after-party. In the past, the bride, groom and their friends would simply go to the hotel bar to keep the party going, and now there are new party plans that our New Jersey and New York City wedding couples are making to turn their after-party into unforgettable celebrations. Here are some after-party plans to inspire you:

Arrange for the hotel shuttle to take you and your friends to your favorite nearby nightclub or bar, then return everyone to the hotel safe and sound.

When making your wedding guest list, you’ll have to decide if you’ll allow all of your single guests to bring a date – commonly known as a ‘+1.’ Wedding etiquette rules used to state that all single guests over the age of eighteen are to be given permission to bring a date, but today’s brides and grooms prefer to surround themselves with guests they know.

To eliminate wedding stress, make it a rule that you will give a +1 only to single guests whose boyfriends or girlfriends you know and have socialized with in the past. This creates a boundary that single guests cannot argue with when you explain it politely to them.

Of course, engaged couples and longtime couples must receive a +1, and it’s good form to give a single or widowed senior citizen a +1, so that he or she may bring a friend or a health aide.

You’ll find, as many of our recent wedding couples do, that your single friends accept your decision and look forward to attending the wedding solo, joining all of the other solo guests in unencumbered mingling, dancing, flirting, fine dining and perhaps meeting a future romantic interest. Not every single guest is going to be offended at the lack of an ‘And Guest’ on the invitation. Some are even relieved that they do not have to find a date, nor do they have to give a more generous wedding gift check from two guests.

If a guest calls to ask for a +1, simply explain that your wedding plans do not allow for additional invitations, and you wouldn’t want to offend any other guests who also requested to bring a date. If parents call to ask if their teenager can bring a friend, that too is best met with, “I’m sorry, but we can’t make any exceptions to our guest rule, since we don’t want to offend other guests who have asked to bring others.” It’s best to avoid the temptation to blame your budget or wedding venue space issues; simply place the reasoning on your boundaries and consideration of other guests.

Be firm and confident in your boundaries, since one exception made by you will quickly hit the grapevine, and other guests will start calling to request their own +1s.